Exec has been with Google, Telaria, GroupM

Comcast’s FreeWheel said it named Utpal Kalita as VP, engineering and chief technology officer for Blockgraph, which Comcast is trying to get the industry to adopt as a secure way to use data and share information for advanced TV advertising. 

Kalita most recently had been chief technology officer of Eyeview Digital. Over a 20-year career, he also spent time at DoubleClick, now a part of Google, Tremor Video (now Telaria) and GroupM’s Xaxis division.

He reports to Jason Manningham, general manager of Blockgraph.

“In today’s data-driven age, our vision for creating Blockgraph was to offer the entire advertising ecosystem the ability to seamlessly provide marketers best-in-class data capabilities while protecting, first and foremost, consumer privacy,” Manningham said. “As we looked for a CTO to help us realize our transformative vision, it was critical to find a leader with a strong track record of leading and inspiring teams to pioneer and build large scale platforms and Utpal stood out.”

Comcast Advertising launched Blockgraph in 2017. In 2018 Blockgraph formed a peer-to-peer platform for securely sharing data needed for advanced television advertising. Viacom and Charter Communications are working with Comcast and FreeWheel on the initiative.